I'm working on a project that requires 3 arduinos on one circuit board and i was wondering if it is possible to have them all run from on crystal oscillator to save money and board space.
-Much Thanks
Yes, you can connect the crystal and caps to one of the processors, then connect XTAL2 of that chip to XTAL1 of the other two.
Be careful....it sounds easy but it's difficult to properly route 16 MHz oscillations around a circuit board. You should try to keep those XTAL traces as short as possible, put a small resistor in series with each clock signal (10-100 ohms) to try to minimize reflections or overshoot, and also cross your fingers. The higher the frequency of the signal being carried on the circuit board (well, really the faster the edges of the signal) the more difficult it is to preserve the signal's integrity from point A to point B.
You might want to design in a backup crystal strategy in case it Just Doesn't Work.
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Beat707: MIDI drum machine / sequencer / groove-box for Arduino
excellent. I will give that a try. thanks for your help!